Nostalgia is one hell of a drug.
The hoopla about Rex Ryan returning to the New York Jets is no longer just noise. NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reported on Monday that Ryan is expected to interview for the Jets’ head coaching vacancy, which Ryan himself also said he expects to happen.
While it is worthwhile to interview Ryan for the sake of gaining his insight, here are five reasons the Jets would be foolish to actually go through with hiring him.
1. Green-shaded goggles mask the fact that his head coaching track record isn’t any good
In the grand scheme of NFL history, Rex Ryan’s track record as a head coach is forgettable. Across eight seasons, he compiled a losing record (61-66), made the playoffs twice, and never won a division title. Ryan’s eight seasons without a division title are the second-most by a head coach in the 21st century, trailing only Jack Del Rio.
While he collected four playoff victories en route to two AFC championship games, he never made it to the promised land. After those two magical runs, he compiled six consecutive seasons in which he missed the playoffs and failed to earn a winning record.
Some Jets fans hold Ryan in a much higher regard than they should because, by the Jets’ standards, he is Vince Lombardi. By NFL standards, though, he is Rex Ryan, and Rex Ryan isn’t anything special.
2. Far behind the times
It has been eight years since Ryan not only served as a head coach, but worked as a football coach in any capacity. Now, nearly a decade later, this mediocre coach is expected to save a franchise with the longest playoff drought in American sports?
Ryan’s brand of football was already known as old-school when he was with the Jets, and that was from 2009-14. In 2025, the NFL is a vastly different game. What worked for him back then would not work today.
Major philosophical adjustments would be required for Ryan to find success in 2025. While it is possible for him to make those adjustments, it is extremely difficult to believe that will happen when the guy has not coached the sport in any capacity since 2016. How much could Ryan actually be learning about the NFL’s modern strategic and schematic trends from the comfort of his “First Take” chair?
I’d believe that a media personality like Dan Orlovsky (who routinely does highly detailed film breakdowns) is in tune with the NFL zeitgeist and ready to turn to coaching. On the contrary, all Ryan ever does is vociferate low-effort hot takes to generate viral clips for his corporate overlords. When was the last time he drew attention for an astute observation rooted in X’s & O’s?
If Ryan has learned anything over the past nine years that would translate to him being a quality NFL head coach in 2025, he has not shown it publicly.
3. His last successful run in New York was a totally different challenge
The Jets are looking for a coach who can turn around the most ridiculed culture in American sports – in the country’s most scrutinized media market.
Defenders of Ryan will claim that he’s already done this before. However, the Jets were in a completely different spot as an organization when Ryan arrived in 2009.
We know the Jets as a perennial laughing stock today, but when Ryan was hired, the Jets had actually established themselves as a respectable franchise over the previous decade-plus. From 1997 to 2008, the Jets had the NFL’s 14th-best win percentage (.521). They made the playoffs five times, won three playoff games, and only finished with a losing record three times in 12 seasons.
Ryan inherited a team that went 9-7 in 2008. That record belies how talented the roster actually was. Before Brett Favre injured his biceps and tanked the team by playing through the injury, the Jets were 8-3 and widely considered one of the favorites to win the Super Bowl. That squad had seven Pro Bowlers, four of whom also earned All-Pro honors.
Give Ryan credit for maximizing the talent afforded to him, especially with a struggling young quarterback under center, but he was handed a silver platter. Once Ryan had to start building his own thing, the Jets fell off the map.
Turning around this iteration of the Jets is a totally different challenge than the one he took on last time. Ryan’s job in 2009 was to maximize the talent on the roster. The franchise already had organizational stability, a track record of consistent success, and a relatively low amount of drama. In 2025, the Jets have none of those things.
4. His personality doesn’t fit anymore
Today, the Jets are looking for a head coach who can do more than just maximize the talent on the roster. He needs to re-establish organizational stability, reshape the entire culture, and eliminate the drama. Bringing in the boisterous Ryan is counterproductive to accomplishing those goals, especially the latter one.
In 2009, the Jets could handle Ryan’s personality because they were a stable organization that just needed someone to provide a jolt of energy and get the most out of a team that was ready to win. Under his predecessors, Eric Mangini and Herm Edwards, the Jets were not nearly the headline machine that they are today. It was Rex who started it all. While it worked for two years, the act wore thin.
In 2025, the same personality traits that made Ryan a great hire 16 years ago would get in the way of what New York is really trying to accomplish. The Jets are not trying to win the Super Bowl in the immediate future. Before they can get anywhere near that goal, they need to take a football program that has gone completely off the rails and get it back on track – similar to what the Washington Commanders have done. The respectability of the operation must be restored. That will require a mature, even-keeled leader at the head coaching position.
Is Ryan the right guy for that assignment? The guy who spent the last eight years spewing takes on ESPN that are no less vitriolic than those of Stephen A. Smith?
This is the social media era. Things were much different in 2009. Players were not constantly reading what the world thought about them and the team. Coaches could get on the podium and say whatever they wanted without fear that one of the players would go on Twitter and make a cryptic post that goes against what they said. There is a reason that most of today’s coaches are cliché machines at the podium, while Ryan-types are rare (if not non-existent).
Today’s players are highly impressionable. Jets fans know that many of the team’s talented young players have been consumed by online drama over the past few years. Having a coach like Ryan, who will naturally draw more headlines than any other coach the Jets could hire, would only perpetuate those issues. They need a coach who turns young players’ attention away from Instagram and toward the football field, not a guy who spent the last eight years getting paid to generate viral clips on that very same platform.
5. Who’s on his offensive staff?
A great head coach can only be as great as his staff. It’s no surprise that many of the league’s best head coaches in recent history have spawned a plethora of other successful coaches from their coaching tree.
On that note… how is Ryan going to build a strong staff? Especially on offense?
Again, Ryan has not coached in any capacity since 2016. Any connections he might have are from a bygone era of NFL football.
After enduring two years of Aaron Rodgers and Nathaniel Hackett’s stubborn adhesion to archaic offensive philosophies, the Jets need to get back in front of the NFL curve, not further behind it. It makes no sense to hire a defensive coach who hasn’t been in the league since Patrick Mahomes was still at Texas Tech.
In the modern NFL, offensive head coaches rule the league due to teams’ fear of their offensive coordinator being poached. Because of this, hiring a defensive coach is enough of a risk on its own, let alone a guy like Ryan, who once famously said that he “really never focused” on watching the team’s offense during a preseason game.
Hiring a fantastic offensive coordinator (and offensive staff) would be utterly essential in the event of a Ryan hire. That becomes very difficult when he’s been out of the league for so long.
